News from Penguin South Africa

Lest we forget, the Penguin Prize for African Writing Winners were announced on September 4, 2010.

A Nigerian and Zambian won the two prizes for non-fiction and fiction.

The following is the report from Penguin South Africa.

“We were overwhelmed by the number of entries for these two awards and, after hearing from
the judges and readers who read the submissions, encouraged by the writing talent
coming out of our continent. Congratulations to the two worthy winners.”
Alison Lowry, CEO, Penguin Books South Africa




NON-FICTION
Pius Adesanmi - You’re Not a Country, Africa!



In this groundbreaking collection of essays Pius Adesanmi tries to unravel what it is that Africa means to him as an African, and by extension to all those who inhabit this continent of extremes. This is a question that exercised some of the continent’s finest minds in the twentieth century, but which pan-Africanism, Negritude, nationalism, decolonisation and all the other projects through which Africans sought to restore their humanity ultimately failed to answer. Crisscrossing the continent, Adesanmi engages with the enigma that is Africa in an attempt to make meaning of this question for all twenty-first century Africans.
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Pius Adesanmi was born in Nigeria but now lives in Ottowa, Canada.

FICTION
Ellen Banda-Aaku - Patchwork




Destined from birth to inhabit two very different worlds – that of her father, the wealthy Joseph Sakavungo, and that of her mother, his mistress – this emotive tale takes us to the heart of a young girl’s attempts to come to terms with her own identity and fashion a future for herself from the patchwork of the life she was born into. Beautifully constructed, warm and wise, this is a novel that will transport the reader to a world in which we can all become more of the sum of our parts.


AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Ellen Banda-Aaku was born in Zambia and now resides in London, England.

2010-09-15 - The Postmistress Wins 2010 Exclusive Books Boeke Fiction Prize - Readers' Choice

2010-09-09 - Melly, Mrs Ho And Me.

2010-09-08 - Damon Galgut's In A Strange Room Shortlisted For The 2010 Man Booker Prize

2010-09-06 - Penguin Prize For African Writing Winners Announced

2010-08-27 - Cooked In Africa - Finalist For A 2010 Loerie Award

2010-08-19 - Penguin Books South Africa - Best Trade Publisher Of The Year

2010-08-18 - 2010 Booksellers’ Choice Award - Spud Learning To Fly

2010-07-28 - 2010 Man Booker - Long-list

2010-07-23 - Little Ice Cream Boy - Shortlisted For The 2010 M-net Literary Award

2010-07-15 - Why Africa Is Poor

2010-07-07 - Penguin Books South Africa Announces Penguin Prize For African Writing Shortlist

2010-07-06 - Tooth And Nailed

2010-06-25 - Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Series

Chidinma Wins MTN Project Fame West Africa Season 3

Chidinma Ekile

Congratulations to Chidinma Ekile, the winner of MTN Project Fame West Africa season 3. She got the first prize of N2.5 million, plus Toyota Rav 4 SUV.
She deserves it! She has been dynamite from the beginning.

The highly gifted Ghanaian guitarist and singer Kesse Frimpong was first runner up, winning a cash prize of N1.5 million, plus a Toyota Corolla car. Eyo Eminue, the second runner up won a cash prize of N1 nillion, plus a Toyota Yaris car, and Yetunde Orijah who took the 3rd position smiles to the bank with N1 million.

Tolu Adesina and Ochuko Ogbu-Sifo took fifth and sixth positions.

I wonder how Eyo beat Ochuko and Tolu!

Cheers to the whole crew and management for making it the best Project Fame West Africa so far. Great academy with a great faculty.

I give the show five stars!


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Prosecutor Warns That Rise in Student Connectivity Increases Dangers From Child Pornographers, Online Predators

Prosecutor Warns That Rise in Student Connectivity Increases Dangers From Child Pornographers, Online Predators

Alliances With A24Media and Afrik.com Further Cements APO's Position as Global Leader in Dissemination of Africa-Related News

24 Sep 2010 10:00 Africa/Lagos

Media Relations - Alliances With A24Media and Afrik.com Further Cements APO's Position as Global Leader in Dissemination of Africa-Related News

DAKAR, Senegal, September 24, 2010/PRNewswire/ -- The African Press Organization (APO) announced today an alliance with A24 Media, Afrik.com and Afrik-News.com to distribute its wire service via http://www.a24media.com, http://www.afrik.com and http://www.afrik-news.com.


Through an agreement with the multi-lingual wire service, news releases issued by governments, political organizations, NGOs and United Nations duty stations across Africa concerning the continent's political, legal and social events and news will be made available to the more than 1.1 million readers of these well recognized leading websites concerning Africa affairs.


"As global leader in media relations services related to Africa, the African Press Organization is constantly exploring opportunities that provide quick access to current news releases from the African's most important institutions and companies," says Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, APO's Franco-Gabonese General Secretary.


"Aligning with A24 Media, Afrik.com and Afrik-News.com further cements our position as the global leader in distribution of Africa related press releases," Mr. Pompigne-Mognard added.


A24 Media is Africa's first online delivery site for material from journalists, African broadcasters and NGO's from around the continent.


Afrik.com and Afrik-News.com are a reference point for Afro-centric news items online as well as one of Google's best referenced pages concerning African news and events.


The African Press Organization is already engaged in active partnerships with PR Newswire, global leader in news and information distribution services for professional communicators (http://www.prnewswire.com), with LexisNexis, the worldwide leader in legal and News & Business information ( http://www.lexisnexis.com), and with BurrellesLuce, a 120-year-old media-monitoring service provider located in the U.S. ( http://www.burrellesluce.com).


About the African Press Organization (APO)


APO owns a media database of 25,000 contacts and is the most trusted and important Africa-related news online community. APO offers a complete range of media relations tools including press release distribution, press videoconference, webcasts, events promotion, and media monitoring.


The African Press Organization provides free services to African journalists, innovative communications products to Public authorities, companies, and supports many African and International institutions in their strategic communications.


http://www.apo-opa.org


Logo: http://www.apo-opa.org/LogoHD.JPG


Contact: Carine KAZADI, bdm@apo-opa.org, +41-22-534-96-75;


About Afrik.com and Afrik-News.com


Established in the year 2000, Afrik.com has grown to become a reference in afro-centric news items online as well as one of Google's well referenced pages. The website is the proud host of over a million visits per month.


About 1 million readers translates to over 5 million ads viewed each month by virtue of our satellite sites, which deal with cultural, beauty, travel, and economic issues among others. Popular among our readers is our newsletter, which is blasted off to thousands of registered visitors on weekly basis.


http://www.afrik.com and http://www.afrik-news.com


Contact: Frank SALIN, salinfranck@afrik.net, +33-140284938;


About A24 Media


A24 Media is Africa's first online delivery site for material from journalists, African broadcasters and NGO's from around the Continent.


More informations about A24 Media: http://www.apo-opa.org/A24Media.pdf


http://www.a24media.com


Contact : Asif SHEIKH, asif@a24media.com, +254-735-967-402.

Source: The African Press Organization (APO)

Contact: Frank SALIN, salinfranck@afrik.net, +33-140284938; Contact: Carine KAZADI, bdm@apo-opa.org, +41-22-534-96-75; Contact : Asif SHEIKH, asif@a24media.com, +254-735-967-402.

17th Africa Oil Week / 1st-5th November 2010, BMW Pavilion, Cape Town, South Africa

24 Sep 2010

Just in:03:57 Durabilis Announces US$ 10 Million Commitment to Integrate Sustainable Agro Supply Chains in West Africa at Clinton Global Initiative in New York
23 Sep 2010 19:30 Africa/Lagos




17th Africa Oil Week / 1st-5th November 2010, BMW Pavilion, Cape Town, South Africa

CAPE-TOWN, September 23, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ — 17th Africa Oil Week / 1st-5th November 2010, BMW Pavilion, Cape Town, South Africa

The world’s largest and most significant in-depth oil, gas, exploration and development, annual event in and/or on Africa is the landmark meeting occasion for the African oil industry . Attracting 750+ senior-level attendees and over 50+ international and regional exhibitors, this is the top worldwide venue for executive networking, deal-making, rich-content and knowledge about Africa’s fast-moving upstream, exploration and oil/gas-LNG industry.

Organised & Hosted By: Global Pacific & Partners

Contact:babette@glopac.com or amanda@glopac-partners.com or sonika@glopac-partners.com

Date & Venue: 1-5 November 2010, BMW Imax Theatre, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa

Register now – to secure your place: www.africa-oilweek.com

To Exhibit Contact: sonika@glopac-partners.com To Sponsor Contact: amanda@glopac-partners.com

The 17th Africa Oil Week also includes the 12th Scramble for Africa: Strategy Briefing, and our 7th African Independents Forum 2010, along with the 34th PetroAfricanus Dinner in Africa with Guest Speaker: Jordaan Fouche, Investment Analyst, Earth Resource Investment Group: “Oil & Money: African Independents: What Goes Up, May Go Down: Where the Money Went”

Our 17th Africa Oil Week 2010, welcomes its new sponsors: Chevron, and African Petroleum Corp and New Exhibitors including: Murphy Oil, Gardline, African Petroleum Corp

Special Feature: Gabon’s 10th Licensing Round 2010, will launch at the 17th Africa Upstream Conference, with Presentations from: HE Julien Nkoghe-Bekale, Minister of Petroleum, Gabon, with a Ministerial Delegation, and CGGVeritas. Presentations include a dedicated Technical Session, and a Presentation Session in the IMAX Theatre.

Current Sponsors: Lead Sponsor: Tullow Oil; Silver Sponsor: Oando; Bronze Sponsor: Sasol

Plus Sponsors: ExxonMobil, PGS, Gazprom EP International, IHS Energy, Total, Centric Energy, TGS, Stellar Energy Advisors, TMK Trade House, Orca Exploration, Hess, Anadarko, Ophir Energy, Statoil, RWE, Geokinetics, Petroleum Agency SA, Seven Energy, Dominion Petroleum CGG-Veritas, Chevron, TGS, Polarcus, Black Marlin Energy, Adepetun, Caxton-Martins, Agbor & Segun, Africa Oil Corp, SVL, International Aircraft Services, Banwo & Ighodalo, First Energy Capital, Mart Resources Inc, Svenska Petroleum Exploration, Maersk Oil, SouthWest Energy, Danvic Concepts Nigeria, AELEX

Supported By inter alia- Ministry of Mines, Energy, Petroleum Resources Hydraulics (Gabon), Petrosen (Senegal), Dubai Petroleum Club, NOCK (Kenya), Gambia National Oil Company, ONHYM (Morocco).

Confirmed Exhibitors: Expro, Baker Hughes, Kenya, ENH (Moçambique), Ministry of Mines & Energy (Namibia), Ministry of Mines & Energy (Niger), Bayfield Energy Ltd, Black Marlin Energy, Bowman Gilfillan, Century Bumi JV Ltd (Nigeria) , NGR Drilling (Nigeria) , Wide Horzions, Upstream, Seismic Micro-Technology, TGS, Tullow Oil, Sasol Petroleum, Spectrum, Core Laboratories , Polarcus, CNBC Africa, Ernst & Young, Deloitte Petroleum, SVL Ltd, NRG/Hybrid Solutions, Petroleum Agency SA (South Africa) , Ophir Energy, Oando, PGS, TMK, Bergen Oilfield Services, Fugro, Geokinetics, CGGVeritas, WesternGeco, TPDC (Tanzania), International Aircraft Services, GNPC (Ghana), Namcor (Namibia), Layher GmbH & Co, Pakistan Exploration Limited, Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, Ikon Science, OHM Rock Solid Images

With participation of key African Government decision-makers and high-level senior oil/gas officials: from: Angola, Australia, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, China, DRC, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mali, Malaysia, Mocambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, UAE, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela

________________________________________

Confirmed Speakers Include

Fafa Sanyang Commissioner for Petroleum, The Gambia National Petroleum Co

Dr Duncan Clarke Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners

Christopher Pitman CEO, Surestream Petroleum

Barry Rushworth, CEO & Director Afrex & Pancontinental Oil & Gas

Sam Malin CEO, Avana Petroleum

Colin Wilson Sales & Marketing Manager, Emerging Markets Africa, FMC Technologies

Babafemi Oyewole Executive Director, APPA

Tonye Cole Director, Sahara Energy, Nigeria

Radwan Hadi, Chief Operating OfficeVictoria Oil & Gas

Tewodros Ashenafi Chairman & CEO, Southwest Energy

David Cameron Vice President – Exploration, VAALCO Energy, Inc.

John Langhus Commercial Director, Forest Exploration International (SA) (Pty) Ltd

Scott Aitken CEO, Seven Energy Ltd

Tim O`Hanlon Vice President, Africa, Tullow Oil

Jacques Marraud des Grottes President, Africa, Total

Ebbie Haan Managing Director, Sasol Petroleum International

Adewale Tinubu Group Chief Executive, Oando PLC

Dr Duncan Clarke Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners

Pedro Augusto Cortes Xavier Bastos E&P International Business Development Manager, Petrobras, Brazil

Yoshimbumi Miyamoto Director, Europe & Africa, JOGMEC

Dr Emmanuel O Egbogah OON Sepcial Adviser To the President on Petroleum Matters, Office of the President, Nigeria

Daniel Pelerin Managing Director, Exploration, Maurel et Prom

Brian Maxted COO & Founding Partner, Kosmos Energy

Dr Alan Stein Managing Director, Ophir Energy

James Phillips Vice President, Exploration, Africa Oil Corporation

Eddy Belle Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Seychelles Petroleum Company

Ousseini Assane Boureima Chef de a Division, Ministere des Mines de l`Energie, Niger

Tomas Nhabay Acting Director General, Petroleum Resources Unit, Sierra Leone

HE Gabriel Lima Minister, Ministry of Mines, Industry & Energy, Equatorial Guinea

Andrew Objaye Director, Department of Petroleum Resources, Nigeria

Adriano Paulo Sebastiao Chief Geologist, Sonangol

Salah Hassan Wahbi President, Sudapet, Khartoum, Sudan

Senator Lee Maeba Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), National Assembly, Nigeria

William Drennen Senior Vice President, Global Exploration & New Ventures, Hess

Ake Hesselbom Senior Director, Maersk Oil, Copenhagen

Dave Fassom Director, Stellar Energy Advisors

Fredrik Ohrn CEO, Svenska Petroleum Exploration AS

Mthozami Xiphu CEO, Petroleum Agency South Africa

Nelson Ocuane Chairman & CEO, Empressa Nacional de Hidrocarbenetos

Hon. Tam Brisibe Chairman, Sub-Committee on Local Content in the Petroleum Industry, House of Rep. Nigeria

John Downey Exploration Manager, Dana Petroleum

Galib Virani Head of Acquisitions & Investor Relations, Afren, London, UK

Peter Clutterbuck Deputy Chairman, Orca Exploration

Austin Avuru Managing Director, Seplat Petroleum Ltd

HE Immanuel Mulunga Petroleum Commissioner, Ministry of Mines, Namibia

Joseph Pili Pili Mawezi Directeur Chef des Services des Projects, Ministere, DRC

Ketsela Tadesse Promotion Ops Dept,Ministry of Mines & Energy, Ethiopia

Sola Adepetun Partner, Adepetun Caxton-Martins Agbor & Segun

Kevin Wallace Manager, Europe & Africa, Challenger Minerals Inc

Jose Simao Fonseca Inspector of Petroleum Agreements, Ministry of Petroleum, Angola

Wade Cherwayko Chairman, Mart Resources

Richard Schmitt President & CEO, Black Marlin Energy

Teklehaimanot Debretsion Hd, Hydrocarbon Exp., Ministry Mines & Energy, Eritrea

Dr Duncan Clarke Director, International Association For Independent Licensing Agencies, The Hague

Ian Craig Regional Vice President, Shell Exploration & Production Africa Limited

Alec Robinson President & CEO, Centric Energy

M`Hammed El Mostaine Directeur de l`Exploration, ONHYM

Djibril Amadou Kanoute General Manager, Petrosen, Senegal

Manfred Bockmann General Manager, New Ventures, Africa & Middle East, RWE Dea

Julien Nkoghe-Bekale Minister For Petroleum, Republic of Gabon

Aillilat Antseleve-Oyima General Manager, DGH, Gabon

Martial Rufin Moussavou, Directeur Ministere des Mines de l`Energie du Petrole et des Ressources Hydrauliques, Gabon

Jim Martin Vice President, CGGVeritas, EAME Data Library

Steve Toothill Chief Geologist, CGGVeritas, EAME Data Library

Senior Executive Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, Dar-es-Salaam

Dr Ken Seymour Country Manager, Nigeria, E.ON Ruhrgas AG

Senior Executive Petroleum & Exploration Department, Uganda*

Jordaan Fouche Investment Analyst, Earth Resources Investment Group

Marcio Rocha Mello Chief Executive Officer, HRT Oil & Gas Ltd

Boris Ivanov Managing Director & CEO, Gazprom EP International

Sumayya Hassan-Athamani Acting Chief Executive Office, NOCK, Kenya

Kirill Ganin Chief Executive Officer, TMK Global, Moscow

Source: Global Pacific & Partners



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Nigerian Dunces and Nuances on Facebook and Nairaland

Photo Credit: STUDENT MBJ

Most of the topics on the Romance Board of Nairaland revolve around SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS and the posters think SEXUAL INTERCOURSE is the beginning and the end of every relationship.

I have also noticed that the absence of psychotherapists in Nigeria is really not helping matters as many of our girls and boys who should have been seeing psychotherapists or go to a rehab come to the Romance Board to pour out their agonies and ironies of their relationships.

I can relate the mass failures in Nigerian secondary school exams to the characteristics of their personalities on the Romance Board. Because, they carry over these insecurities into the higher institutions and on the street.
They really need help.

I really feel sorry for our girls and boys who foolishly ape those in the US and Europe, but forget that those in the developed nations live in a different environment and they do not have mass failures or underdeveloped tertiary schools. The latest rankings of the 400 world's best universities is worth seeing to show you that we cannot ape the ways of life of those in the US and Europe in relationships. Most of these dummies paste useless photographs and trivia on Facebook and at the end of the day, they fail woefully in the classroom.

They can gyrate to the popular pornographic and psychedelic music videos and practice what they see on TV, but most of them cannot add much value to Nigeria, except increasing the cases of HIV/AIDS, like in River state where there are over 400, 000 cases of HIV/AIDS from the sexual activities of our promiscuous girls and boys who think with their loins and not with their brains. They forget that they are humans and not dogs.

Those in the US and Europe are well fed, well educated and their social structures work whereas our own have collapsed.

When a girl gets pregnant in Nigeria, she has no SAFETY NET for such an emergency.
When a girl is raped, she prefers to hide it than report it. No counselor and no therapist to address her predicament and she goes on like a wounded creature with unresolved issues in her heart and soul and if she is not healed she would degenerate to a worse state.
POSING AND POSTURING does not help them from the facts of life in a precarious state like Nigeria.

I have been using different literary devices to make them think and jolt them to face the stark realities of life in Nigeria, but many of them remain very ignorant, impetuous and vacuous.

The sooner our girls and boys start thinking with their brains and not with their loins, the better, healthier and safer they would be for our common good.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Your Majesty, The Flat Face Of The Naira

In this chapter from Royal Mail, his twelve-part epistle to Queen Elizabeth II of England, the renowned Nigerian poet, King Nengi Josef Ilagha, Mingi XII, Amanyanabo of Nembe, suggests that the name of the Naira be changed to Turinchi, the Hausa-Fulani word for English, to reflect the national heritage of Nigeria as it marks 50 years of political independence from Britain.

II

The Flat Face Of The Naira

No one can make you a slave without your consent.
- Eleanor Roosevelt



YOUR MAJESTY, I am a living witness to just how round the pound is, even as a coin, and how prestigious it is in hand. There’s no dirt on the face of the Queen in the fifty pound note. It is the strongest currency in the world, and has been so for so long. The dollar bows to it, and so does the yen. The euro does not compare with the sterling by a yardstick, which is why the average British citizen would rather not have any kind of political merger that might spell a drop in value for the sterling.


By the way, how does it feel to have your face on your own national currency, to know that wherever the pound is, there you are as well? Today when I tell my children that, once upon a time, this same pound was the national currency in Nigeria, they find it hard to believe. It has become the stuff of legend that every pound and every shilling was mopped up by the Central Bank of Nigeria only in 1973, three years after the civil war. It is hard to believe that the naira, the Nigerian currency, was swapping on a cozy ratio of two naira to one pound at that time; that the naira indeed was on a comfortable one to one exchange footing with the American dollar.


Things have since fallen apart for the Nigerian naira, Your Majesty. The central government cannot hold it in place, not along the roadside market, not on the stock exchange. Recently, I had cause to change a huge pile of naira notes, all two hundred thousand pieces of them, and was suitably embarrassed to receive a sum under one thousand pounds in exchange. In the batting of an eyelid, I had finished counting. Before the imperial pound, the naira simply falls flat on its face, a willing slave on the fiscal calculus. I am still at a loss as to how this happened, Your Majesty, and why we haven’t been able to rise to our full height for so long.
At the recent Isaac Boro day celebrations in London, the special representative of the President at the occasion, Braeyi Ekiye, was telling the packed audience about the progress being made at the home front with regard to the proposed electoral reforms. Even though I was familiar with the figure that had been approved for the electoral commission towards the 2011 elections, the explosive sound of eighty-seven billion naira still reverberates in my ears -- and it has nothing to do with the burp of the microphone before Ekiye’s lips.


In times past, I thought, that figure would amount to the overall budget of a number of states for one year. Now, it is one of many approvals that the President is obliged to endorse within a space of four months. As the days unfold, my fellow country men and women seem to lose sight of a geographical verity, that the higher you go the cooler it becomes. With regard to the naira, in this particular case, the higher the figures the lower the value of our currency in the international money market.


Once upon a time, the naira was the leading and most liquid currency in all of West Africa, so much so that it was proposed as the legal tender of the sub-region. That’s because the Ghanaian cedi as well as the West African CFA franc were underlings, so many thousand units exchanging for a handful of naira. Not so anymore. We now count our funds in mouthfuls as well, and the more high-sounding the amounts, the more gratifying in the ears of the average contractor and his political collaborator. Every day, so much money is voted for, and so little gets done. Chinua Achebe testifies that “we have become so used to talking in millions and billions that we have ceased to have proper respect for the sheer size of such numbers.” He was writing in 1983, mark you. Today, twenty-seven years later, the tendency to proclaim billion naira figures is far more manifest, in the private calculations of individuals as in the official pronouncements of government.


Let me bring you up to date on this, Your Majesty. One of the most hopeful road projects in the fifty-year history of Nigeria is the Nembe-Brass road. It was first proposed by the Niger Delta Development Board in 1962. Then it came on the Federal Government's drawing board in 1971, and was first awarded by the General Yakubu Gowon regime, evidently in millions. The same project was re-awarded in 1983 by the Shehu Shagari government but was botched by the coup that was to follow. It was awarded a third time in 1990 by the Babangida regime only to be conveniently abandoned. In the wake of the presidential amnesty granted Niger Delta militants, the contract was awarded for a record fourth time in November 2009, just before the late President Yar’Adua took ill.


Today, the entire forty-two kilometer stretch of the road commencing from Yenagoa and cutting through Oloibiri and Nembe right down to Brass on the fringes of the Atlantic Ocean, is estimated to cost one billion naira per kilometer. That would be forty-two billion naira, only. Professor E.J. Alagoa, chairman of the Nembe-Ibe Group Road Project, laments that forty-eight years after the idea for the road was first mooted and the commitment of the Federal Government was spelt out on paper, the road is still a future prospect. Given the penchant for cost variations in Nigeria’s construction industry, to say nothing of kick-backs and side kicks, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to Your Majesty if the road swallows all of eighty-four billion naira, if not more, by the time it gets to destination point.


Nigeria is an odd country, Your Majesty, at cross purposes with itself. Even in the development of literature and the arts, Nigeria is deficient. The writers weep for lack of patronage. Values are turned upside down and inside out. Nigeria is the only country on the face of the earth where an enlightened panel of judges decides the best nine books of poetry out of 163 published in four years, and yet cannot declare the winner. And then -- surprise, surprise! -- the prize money goes to the panel. It happened on the night of October 10, 2009, at the Nicon Noga in Abuja.


Former Heads of States were there, business tycoons were there, politicians came in all their pageantry. Only conscience was in flight. None of the eggheads on parade could ease the microphone from the Master of Ceremonies, and tell the panel of professors and their sponsors on the spot that it was wrong to advertise a prize for one full year, and demure when it mattered most. The prize money in question was not in naira. It carried greater value. It was fifty thousand United States dollars.
As Dan Agbese, one of Nigeria’s most perceptive journalists, would put it: “What distinguishes Nigeria from other countries is not our wealth but the way we use it. Other countries spend money to solve their problems. We turn money into missiles and shoot them at our problems.” He couldn’t have put it better. The poets in question are still reeling with shock in the aftermath of that unnecessary coup.


Even so, Your Majesty, you were no less unconscionable in your bid to exploit the resources of Nigeria. I dare say the British Crown built a good part of modern Britain on the wealth you colonized from our groundnut pyramids, our cocoa pods, our palm produce and our oil wells, in much the same way that Babangida built Abuja with the wealth derived from the Niger Delta. You will do well to wipe your conscience clean of this imperial misdemeanour.


It is time to own up to what you took by force and guile, time to return every artifact in your National Museum at Bloomsbury, every artistic piece that bears the signature of Nigeria, beginning with the sixteenth century Ivory Mask from Benin which was the mascot for the Second African Festival of Arts and Culture, FESTAC ‘77. And that is just in the cultural sector. It is time for restoration on a pervasive scale, time for conscience to have the right of way in your dealings with our nation and its long-suffering people.

***

If you were to throw a question over the heads of the Nigerian multitude, and ask all those who do not think that Jesus Christ can conduct free and fair elections in the country to raise their hands, only one man is bound to do so. That man is Olusegun Okikiola Obasanjo, OOO for short, a farmer from Ota who has since lost his hoe. It is like an obsession with him to utter offensive statements. Obasanjo is prone to blasphemy, Your Majesty. Like Prince Phillip, he has a risqué sense of humour. As Professor Charles Nnolim would say, “every time he opens his mouth, a big fat toad jumps out.” You want to hazard a bet? No need for that. OOO is my fellow country man. I know him better than you do. Never mind the show he put up for you when you visited Abuja seven years ago.


On the eve of the 2003 elections, Sam Aluko, one of the foremost economists in the country, had cause to compare the Abacha and Obasanjo administrations side by side. He scored Abacha far higher than OOO. At the very next press conference the farmer attended, the question came up for air. What’s your reaction to what Professor Aluko said about your government and its mismanagement of the naira? Obasanjo’s retort went right off the mark.
“That one whose son is a thief in the Senate?”


Talk about effrontery, Your Majesty. The man left the substance of the matter altogether and stalked the shadow instead. How fallacious can he get? Ask me another question. When approached for comments, Aluko chose not to join issues with the farmer. If he were to oblige him, he would have probably underscored the fact that, under Abacha, the naira exchanged for twenty-two to one dollar. But by the time Obasanjo left office on May 29, 2007, following his failed bid to make a third term, the naira had fallen to a sprawling low of one hundred and fifty to one dollar.
Mark you, I am not holding brief for General Sani Abacha. He was the most mindless, the most rabid, of all the dictators that ever governed Nigeria these past fifty years. His personal record of corruption and graft ranks as the most brazen in the annals of our history. The Swiss Bank is my witness. In fact, the government of OOO took it upon itself to investigate Abacha’s wholesale looting of Nigeria's coffers, and declared that $4 billion or £3 billion worth of foreign assets were traced to Abacha, all acquired at the expense of the tax payer. In 2002, out of $2.1 billion demanded by the government, Abacha's family agreed to return $1.2 billion that was annexed from the Central Bank. In many ways, Abacha was the last Nigerian military dictator. It is now twelve years since he passed on. We don’t need another.


It so happens that Bayelsa, one of the five states created by Abacha on October 1, 1996, remains something of a baby in diapers, practically exploited to retardation by its politicians and contractors, suffering under the malignant shadow cast by Abacha’s corrupt antecedents. Only recently, the current governor of the state earnestly promised on national television that he would build the first hanging bridge in Nigeria, so that the rest of humanity could come from far and near to see this construction engineering wonder.


Your Majesty, he spoke as one who has seen the drawbridge across the River Thames, and therefore that may not cut ice with you. I merely mention this as an indication of how imaginative our politicians can get. For fifty years of our sovereign nationhood, we have been coping with grand dreams conceived to hoodwink the hopeful voter and to buy time, while the treasury is systematically plundered for the selfsame prospect of the proverbial hanging bridge that never would be. And for ingenuity, for sheer creative bravado, a special prize must go to the chairman of the environmental sanitation authority in the state who stuffed four hundred million naira of tax payers’ money into an empty water tank, and left the criminal sum hanging high above his roof in what may well qualify as the modern-day equivalent of the Akassa Raid. That is how bad the scramble for the naira has become in the country you once ruled, God save the Queen.


What is even more ludicrous is that, on the eve of our country’s Golden Jubilee anniversary, a retired military dictator you may have heard about, a veteran coup maker with pretensions to decent civilian conduct, has declared his intentions to run for the presidency in the forthcoming elections. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, of course, gives him sufficient leave to contest for any office of his choice, as well he might. He believes he can lay the flat face of the naira on the negotiation table, and buy up every Nigerian conscience that may be up for sale ahead of the elections. By and by, we shall know just how far his bidding goes.
In the meantime, I suggest we change the face value of the naira, and opt for a more acceptable currency that would reflect our national heritage. Let us change the name of the Naira to Turinchi, the Hausa-Fulani word for English. After all, the English language has been our lingua franca in the last fifty years, and is likely to remain so for another half a century.

IBB Did Not Annul The Historic June 12 Presidential Election Alone

M.K.O. Abiola, the Martyr of June 12


Mr. Olatunji Dare,

I read "The Spirit of June 12"; published in The Nation on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, and the numerous responses you received.

The June 12 Crisis has not been critically addressed to actually know the truth, the annulment and how The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and the other brave defenders of justice and democracy challenged the tyranny of the despotic military dictators until the martyrdom of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.

Most of our youths have not even read the Saturday June 11, 1994 Epetedo Proclamation of M.K.O. Abiola, and are just reacting from hearsay and not conviction.

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babaginda (IBB) (retd) did not annul the historic June 12 presidential election ALONE.
The late despot General Sani Abacha and their accomplices including Igbo leaders and some Yoruba leaders were partners in crime in the annulment.

I was an insider in the presidential campaign of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and I left when the primaries were cancelled. I knew that the presidential election was being stage-managed and would end in futility.

How can military dictators form two political parties for the electorate?
Is that true democracy?
How can you trust them to follow the rule of law in military dictatorship?
They formed the two political parties of National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and could as well cancel the primaries and annul the presidential election.

Let us not be overly sentimental about June 12 and get swayed by the hypocrisy of those who want to crucify IBB for the annulment of presidential election of June 12, 1993. He is not the only culprit.
What role did former President Olusegun Obasanjo play?

I am raising these critical salient issues, because of the appalling ignorance of the majority of Nigerians who are always being fooled by the political schemes and scams of the ruling class of the Nigerian kleptocracy of which the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) is the archetypal of a government of kleptomaniacs.

May I advise you to read the historical play "The Mandate of M.K.O Abiola" by Adeleke O. Adeyemi, which I published in 2007.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana.
CODENAME JUNE 12: MANDATE AND MAYHEM A Tragedy on the Greatest Threat Ever to Nigeria’s Ruling Mafia. And How it was Checked.

God save Nigeria from the anomie of corruption and hypocrisy.

Odega Shawa Exposes the Pastors of the Apocalypse

Nigeria is world famous for thousands pentecostal churches.

Odega Shawa Exposes the Pastors of the Apocalypse



When Odega Shawa gave me an autographed copy of his critical analytical book “Pastors of the Apocalypse”, I was anxious and curious to find out the identities of the pastors and read the 105 pages in five hours without stepping out of my office.

Odega’s major focus is on the Nigerian pastors of the new generation churches who have their own interpretations of the Word of God for their own selfish motives. These pastors he nicknamed “Top Cat pastors” and he actually mentioned their names and their denominations. He must have done a thorough research on them to be able to separate the sheep from the goats among them. He mentioned altercations between Pastor Tunde Bakare and Bishop David Oyedepo, the controversial confrontation between Rev. Chris Okotie and Pastor T.B. Joshua and the issues raised over the glamourous personality of the late Pastor Bimbo Odukoya of the The Fountain of Life Church and the refuted comments made by Prophet T.O. Obadare, founder of the World Soul-Winning Evangelistic Ministries (WOSEM)..

Odega challenged the mercantilism of the worldly prosperity theology of some of the pastors and found them wanting in the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. He made relevant references to the teachings of the Holy Bible from the Old Testament to the New Testament to prove his points.

Odega’s reference to Dimethyltryptamine on the question of the origins of God and the existential facts of life affecting the human species and their destiny is also as controversial as his polemic analysis of the crisis of faith being exploited by these so called “Pastors of the Apocalypse”.

The gullibility and hypocrisy of most of the millions of church goers in Nigeria have made them easy preys of the false prophets or the wolves in sheep clothing who are giving Christianity a bad name.

“Pastors of the Apocalypse” is a must read for everyone who needs more knowledge on the history of religion, the challenges of the Christian fate and how to identify the true ministers and their congregations in contrast to the confused and fake multitudes.

Odega Shawa, a graduate of the University of Lagos has written a well researched book and his English is flawless.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Eritrea / Journalists still hunted down nine years after September 2001 purges

17 Sep 2010 19:44 Africa/Lagos


Eritrea / Journalists still hunted down nine years after September 2001 purges


ASMARA, Eritrea September 17, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The Eritrean authorities continue to gag all forms of free expression and recently arrested another journalist as he was trying to flee the country, Reporters Without Borders said today, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the start of a brutal political purge in Asmara on 18 September 2001. The organisation wrote to the British authorities yesterday urging them to prosecute one of the purge's organisers, who now lives in Britain.


Journalist Eyob Kessete of state-owned radio Dimtsi Hafash's Amharic-language service was arrested at some point during the past summer as he was trying to cross the border into Ethiopia. It is not known where he is now being held. After his first arrest for trying to defect at the start of the summer of 2007, he was held in several prisons until relatives obtained his release in late 2008 or early 2009 by acting as guarantors.


The fate of around 20 other imprisoned journalists is still cloaked in the same oppressive official silence. There is still no news, for example, about Said Abdulhai, a journalist who was arrested during the last week of March. It is still not clear where Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac of the now-closed daily Setit, who was arrested on 23 September 2001 in Asmara, is being held. A new collection of his writings, entitled “Hope – The Tale of Moses' and Manna's Love and other texts” is to be unveiled next week at Sweden's Göteborg book fair.


The September 2001 round-ups, the closure of all the privately-owned media and the arrests of the main newspaper publishers began a period of terror from which Eritrea still has not emerged because of the intolerance and paranoia of its leaders. Nowadays, there are no independent media, foreign reporters are unwelcome and journalists working for the state media must enthusiastically peddle government propaganda and, if they cannot follow orders, they have no choice but to flee the country.


Reporters Without Borders wrote yesterday to Scotland Yard's War Crimes Department to ask about the state of its investigation into Naizghi Kiflu, an Eritrean citizen resident in Britain. As information minister and presidential adviser at the time of the 2001 crackdown, he could be arrested and prosecuted under article 134 of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which punishes torture.


In May 2008, Reporters Without Borders issued a report entitled “Naizghi Kiflu, the dictatorship's eminence grise” that detailed the role he played in Eritrea's repressive apparatus. Read the report: http://en.rsf.org/eritrea-naizghi-kiflu-the-dictatorship-s-21-05-2008,27109.html.


Eritrea has come last in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index for the past three years. It is ranked 175th out of 175 countries. The onetime hero of Eritrea's liberation struggle, President Issaias Afeworki now oppresses his people and has become Africa's most ruthless dictator. He is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “Predators of Press Freedom.” More information: http://en.rsf.org/spip.php?page=predateur&id_article=37194.


Sign the petition for the release of journalists imprisoned in Eritrea: http://en.rsf.org/petition-for-release-of-imprisoned-journalists,37549.html.


Source: Reporters without Borders (RSF)